The Boy in the Mirror
by UltimateParadox
Summary: He always knew what to say to make her happy, he knew what to do. He knew what to sacrifice. AU. EDIT 7/13/10, Sora's POV added.
1. Laughter in the Light

**.White is Every Color.**

She tires of staring at the white ceiling, the four white walls, the white, cloudy overhang through the window. The splashes of pastel colors around the room do not hold her attention as her blue eyes, deep as the most precious of sapphires, scan the room for anything she could value, anything to keep her sane, to catch her attention, to cure the stifling loneliness and boredom.

Seven-year-old Kairi sits up slowly, pushing herself from the white bedspread. She stares at the little, white vanity mirror, at her own fiery red hair reflected back at her. She watches her lips purse into a tight frown, cheeks puffing out in a pout befitting her age.

The little, white dove next to the little, white mirror ekes out a high tone. Her frown grows broader. The bird is a new addition to the girl's white room, a gift from her parents, the man with the light hair and kind eyes, the woman with hair like her own, eyes soft as the breeze.

"To keep you company," they told her when she came home to find the animal sitting in a pristine, white cage. "You get to name him."

She does not name the bird and, in fact, thinks he is terrible company. It is shy and it can't talk to her; she can't discuss the bird's favorite color (though she has a sneaking suspicion that it is white), or whether or not Mommy and Daddy will like her newest drawing, or how many thalassa shells will fit on a necklace. The bird is feathers and noise, and Kairi is still lonely.

She walks to the mirror, watches her actions mimicked in the glass, and suddenly she seems a little less lonely. This mirror self can talk to her, this illusion can talk just as much as she can.

It doesn't hold up.

Kairi only knows she is crying because she can see the tears trickling down from her eyes. Her loneliness has returned ten fold.

The dove begins to coo.

Kairi feels the world begin to collapse around her. The tears come faster, more plentiful. Why can the bird make itself known, but she must remain invisible? Why is she prohibited to the existence she cries over?

"I just want someone to talk to!" Her mind roars through her turmoil. "A friend!"

She's never thought so much about a simple friendship before, despite the many times her parents leave her to her own devices with the disheveled babysitter who smells distinctly of smoke.

Kairi is a big girl. She does not need the lady who smells like smoke. She is not supposed to cry. She is Mommy's Gorgeous Flower, Daddy's Little Warrior.

She is a big girl, she swears it.

"Hey, why are you crying?"

The voice scares her so much that she has to block her scream with teeth welded shut. The tears stop, if only due to shock.

The redheaded girl in the mirror who copies her is gone. She sees brown hair, the strands comically done up in spikes. This reflection is not her own, even if she locks and sees eyes as blue as her own watching her.

The reflection of a strange boy with curious eyes stares back at her.

"I-I'm not crying!" Kairi protests as she rubs furiously at her eyes. The fear has ebbed and her embarrassment has set in. She reminds herself that big do not cry, once again.

"Don't lie," the boy admonishes. He raises a hand and points at her. Kairi knows she cannot possibly be seeing this, but she is looking at the mirror as though through a window. "Why are you crying?"

Kairi distantly notices that the silly dove has stopped making noise. Caught in her lie, she said, "I'm feeling a little lonely." The admission makes her blush, a dusty pink spread across her cheeks.

The boy looks perplexed as he hears her softly spoken worlds, and Kairi thinks that he looks a little pained as he tries to ponder this information. She almost giggles, and probably would, but her tears, drying on her face, silence her.

Suddenly the boy smiles, and it is as if the sun itself has decided to shine on Kairi and _only_ Kairi, radiating a friendliness that alleviates the darkness encroaching around her, lighting up her heart. Kairi is surprised when she feels her lips pull into a shy smile in return.

"You don't have to cry anymore!" the boy proclaims. "You don't have to, really! I'll be your friend, and I'll be here whenever you want me to be! I promise!"

Kairi stares at him, confused, when he jabs his pinky finger out towards her. She knows this gesture ("Pinky Promise, Daddy!") and has seen the oath it represents fall time and time again.

She considers the sitter downstairs, negligent as always, and she considers her parents who are off at work. She considers the little, white dove in its cage beside the mirror.

"We can't make it a pinky promise," she whispers as she touches her pinky to the mirror, imagining she can feel the warmth of his skin, knowing her can hear her words. "because we can't touch. I think I'd like to be your friend, though."

His smile does not falter, even as he lowers his finger. "What's your name?"

"Kairi," she answers. Her tiny smile has grown.

"I'm Sora," the boy in the mirror says. "I'm really glad that I got to meet you. Friends forever, okay? Promise!"

**.Blooming Colors.**

The heavy satchel hits the plush carpet with an impressive thud. Kairi saunters over to the bed, collapses, and shuts her eyes tightly. The throbs in her cranium beat at a study rhythm.

There is a soft chuckle and Kairi feels some kind of relief settle over her. "Hello, Sora."

She turns her head and stares at the old vanity mirror, unsurprised to see the brown-haired, blue-eyed boy (not quite a boy anymore, having spurted into his teenage years as swiftly as she had) in the mirror. She never noticed when his baby fat has vanished to lean muscle, or when he suddenly had a deeper voice. She only knows that the boy in the mirror is her friend always.

He keeps his promises.

Sora nods at her in acknowledgement. "Tough day at school?"

"I can't say 'tough'," she answers with a sigh. "Confusing seems to work better."

"You wanna talk about it?"

Kairi smiles. Sora has always been curious to the point where she once believed he was just in it for the gossip. She had learned, though, that if she denied him, he would not try to wheedle it out of her. He is always respectful.

"I think someone likes me," she admits, blushes red. She reaches above her head to grab a white pillow before smashing it to her face, hiding.

"_Who?_"

Kairi pulls the pillow away from her face just enough to give Sora a once-over. His voice is tinted with a spot of something unidentifiable. He is pouting, just a bit, lips tugged down childishly.

She takes pity on him and replies, "His name is Riku. He's a senior."

Sora's expression does not change, but she can see a contemplative cloud pass over his eyes. "He's older than you."

"Is that bad? I'm older than you, you know."

Sora looks surprised. "What? Only by a month and a half! And it's not bad, it's just...I don't know." He shrugs and it seems like a weighted, resigned gesture. "I guess I'm just trying to look out for my best friend as best I can from here."

Kairi has asked where Sora lives, where he comes from. She still does not know.

"I appreciate it," Kairi mollifies him. His boyish smile returns.

With visible effort, Kairi sluggishly crawls across the bed to reach out for the abandoned bag, dragging it across the floor until it reaches the edge. She digs through it blindly until she withdraws her hand, a silvery cellphone gripped loosely. Almost as though sensing her, the phone suddenly chimes a polyphonic tune.

Kairi pops the cellphone open with her thumb. The message inside it makes her fading blush renew itself.

Sora leans forward until Kairi is sure that he will hit his head on the mirror (a fumble he as made several amusing times in the past) as he fails to hide his desire to know. "Is that from this Riku?"

She nods vigorously. Her fingers are tapping rapidly on the QWERTY keyboard of th phone. "He wants to hang out with me tonight," she confirms with a smile.

Kairi misses the immediate scowl on her friend's face. "But-"

"I'm so excited! He's really cute...and I do want to get to know him."

"But-!"

"Sora, go away for a tad! I need to change!" Kairi's newfound energy propels her body to her closet, hidden behind a boring, white door. It is wrenched open and Sora sees her tossing spontaneous articles of clothing out into the room.

"But Kairi!" he exclaims. The urgency he projects gives the girl pause as she peeks from over her shoulder.

"Sora?"

He looks upset, an expression so foreign on his face that Kairi wonders if the boy in the mirror is truly Sora at all. It is wrong on his face because Kairi thinks that Sora should only smile.

"But...," he continues. Now that he has her attention, he becomes nervous. She would call it endearing, but she knows that Sora is serious. "But you went out last night with your friends from school. And you just got home. I...missed you. I don't want you to go out tonight."

Kairi feels a pressing guilt settle beneath her breast. It is almost painful. His eyes stare into her won, and he just looks so _sad_.

Her heart aches, both for the boy she cannot touch and for the boy that is expecting her.

"But I just told him I'd meet him, Sora," Kairi murmurs. She does not look at him, she does not want to see that heartbroken face. She glances anyway.

Sora's head is lowered. When he raises it, his vibrant smile is back in place. "Go ahead, Kairi. Forget about it. Don't let me monopolize your time."

Sora has never lied to her before, but somehow Kairi doubts his sincerity. "Sora...?"

"Don't worry about it," he encourages. He even waves her away. "I'm gonna let you change now. See you?"

Kairi's heart plummets as she hears the question in his farewell. "Of course. But are you really sure this is okay with you?"

Sora's smile hardens. "I can miss you a little longer, I'll live. Go have fun." He appears to be turning around, and at the end of his turn, he fades away, and Kairi sees herself reflected in the mirror.

It is not until after she leaves, properly primped and dressed appropriately, that a teenage boy looks into a little white room, looking more forlorn than ever before.

"But Kairi, you already told _me_ you'd be with me tonight. I asked first."

**.Washed Out.**

Kairi watches distractedly as the thick-muscled movers bring the ancient, white vanity mirror into the pastel-yellow room. Naminé is watching from her lap in wonder.

"Mommy, I really like this house," she says, clutching to her mother's blouse.

"It's really big," says Roxas as he peers into his sister's new room. "The house is really, _really_ big."

Naminé slips from Kairi's lap and grabs her twin's hand. She all but drags the boy to the old mirror. "Mommy," she chirps, and Kairi is reminded of the little, white dove that a dear friend of hers had named Jacobi. "There's a big crack in the mirror you took from Gran's. Look!"

An unfamiliar panic seizes Kairi as she almost flies to the mirror. She prays under her breath that this is not the truth her child is speaking.

Her prayers are in vain.

The crack begins at the top of the mirror and snakes haphazardly down the right side. It might as well have been an open laceration, infected and sore.

"Why don't you two see what Daddy's up to?" She mutters as her fingers gingerly trace the crack. She waits patiently as she hears Roxas coax his sister from the room, the padding of their feet, the echo of their voices slowly fading further away.

"Sora...?" Her voice trembles as the age-old name tumbles inelegantly off her tongue. It has been years since she has last spoken it, and the guilty from the night of her and her husband's first date returns with the force and weight of a military tank.

There is no answer from the cheerful friend she might have loved, once upon a time.

How many years, she wonders, have passed since she had begun to ignore him? The little boy who saved her from the darkness of her own heart, who helped with her homework if he could, who was there always, without fail.

Why could she not return the favor? She remembers the day he had been so distressedm but she had been allowed to do as she wanted. He spoiled her silly. He always knew what to say to make her happy, he knew what to do. He knew what to sacrifice.

How many years, she wonders, have passed since she stopped using that child's vanity mirror? When did she forget about him, leave him behind? When did he give up trying?

She sees a solitary tear slip from her eye, as though in a sad tribute to the grievous blemish on the mirror, only because she is finally, once again, staring into the world of reflections. She reminds herself of her childhood, crying and lonely.

High school has tarnished her friendship, and Sora had paid for it with his happiness.

She had moved in with Riku without Sora's consent, leaving her little, white room to her parents' mercy.

Family life had kept her busy, still does, and Sora had been alone.

Was that when Sora broke, the crack forming in the mirror as though it were his broken heart?

"Sora...?" She tries again, the sorrow tunneling into her aching heart.

Her blue eyes stare back at her. Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad.

And then her eyes disappear from the reflection entirely.

"Kairi...?" The question rings heavy with uncertainty in a voice that is not her own, and she brings in the figure before her eyes.

The boy in the mirror is no longer a boy, he's no longer a teenager. He's a man now. He's no longer cute, no longer boyish. He would be handsome, but...

His right eye is missing, crimson blood steadily flowing down his face. And still, he smiles when he recognizes her.

"Kairi," he breathes. He is smiling, his right eye is a grotesque mess, and his left is tearing up. "You came back."

Kairi cannot find the words to speak. What can she possibly say to him?

"I missed you. You were gone for a long time. How is Riku doing? Last time you said he was having a fight with his dad."

So simple. He is talking as though the many, too many, years have not passed. As though he is not critically injured. As though she has not betrayed him.

Kairi remembers the last time, now, that they talked. It had been raining, and Kairi had just gotten off the phone with Riku. He had been fighting, and he was going to stay the night. Sora had disapproved and had promptly left the moment the doorbell rang.

She had given Riku her everything that night.

"I...I'm sorry, Sora!" Suddenly, she is bawling. Bawling like Roxas and Naminé did in their earliest years.

"This room is new," Sora says. He does not acknowledge her apology, but this also can mean that he does not accept it.

She takes a deep, shuttering breath before she bothers with speaking. "This is my daughter's room. She's six."

Sora smiles and it looks brighter. "Daughter? What's her name?"

There is blood and tears, but he still retains the aura of normalcy.

"H-her name is Naminé," she almost chokes on her raging emotions. "She has a brother. His name is Roxas. They're twins."

"Good names," Sora states with a tone of finality. "It's also good that they have each other. They won't be lonely."

"R-right."

"You're crying again. Are you feeling lonely?"

Kairi's head snaps up so fast that she worries about the state of her neck. Her bleary eyes widen when she seems him watching her, blood and tears streaming down his face, pinky extended towards her.

Her hands shake. She touches her pinky to the mirror.

"No, Sora. I'm not lonely anymore. I'm sorry. I have to break our promise."

The mantra of apologies and self-depreciation thunders in her skull.

Sora slowly closes his eye. She knows this part of the dance. She can see his acceptance.

"It hurts," are the words he says as he opens his eye again. The blue in it is changing, almost to a green. His hair is growing darker. His hands draw back from the mirror's edge and repeatedly clench and unclench.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Anything," Kairi says so quickly she wonders if he catches it. His bitter smiles reflects that he has.

His green eye is yellow now, ethereal and _scary_. It does not belong to her friend. His hair is black. His skin looks frozen, decaying before her.

"Absolutely anything," she promises. "I owe you that much."

"Make it stop hurting," he pleads. She sees his blackening fingers begin to reshape themselves into something deadly. He is not Sora. Yet she still...

"I will," Kairi whispers. She leans forward and presses her lips to the mirror.

**.Red.**

"Naminé?" Riku querries. Roxas is perched on his shoulders, Naminé clutching at her father's hand. "Why is your bedroom door shut? We need to unpack your things."

Roxas is the one to answer. "Mommy was in there. She was worried about the old mirror from Gran and Gramp's."

Riku makes an interested sound. "That mirror belonged to your mom when she was a little girl. It's really important to her."

He pushes the door open and does not understand what he sees at first.

There is blood, tears, and glass.

An artifical silence hangs in the room. Riku removes his son with admirable speed, ushering the children our of the bedroom.

Kairi is on her knees amidst the wreckage. Her fists are sliced open to unimaginable degrees, blood oozing out and falling into a macabre puddle on the white carpet. Reflecting pieces of glass lay scattered about, clutched tightly in her fists and pressing mercilessly into her legs.

He cannot differentiate between her crystalline tears and her ruby-red blood. Dimly, he notices it matches her; hair of the richest red, eyes as clear as water. She is beautiful, even as a bloody, weeping mess.

She looks up at him and neither can speak for a time.

Concerned calls from Naminé and Roxas become white noise.

She manages to smile; the sight is frightening. "He wanted it to stop. I promised. I promised." The rest of what she splutters is nonsensical as her wall of emotional restraint falls to pieces like the mirror fragments.

Her sobs are heart wrenching.

"Kairi," Riku says at length, stepping forward cautiously, holding out his hand. Her hand slips into his and she rises on unsteady legs. "Let's get you to the hospital. You're hurt."

"I hurt him more," she insists. "I promised, 'Ku. I promised."

_No, you kept your promise._

_

* * *

_

**First time in the Kingdom Hearts fandom. Be gentle with me! Also, I'm considering on doing a 2nd part from Sora's point of view, let me know if I should even bother, okay?**

**Ah. My low self esteem is starting to kick in.**


	2. Whispers in the Darkness

**.Black is the Absence of Color.**

What is light?

He thinks it has to exist. He knows it has to. Because without light, there can be no darkness. There would be only nothing.

He knows the existence of darkness to be true. He is always immersed in it. Darkness is always there.

He cannot see his hand in front of his face, but he knows it is there. He has the latent knowledge of anything and everything. The darkness whispers it all to him.

The hand he cannot see can most certainly feel. There is something in front of him, another object in the dark, and the darkness whispers, _"This is glass. This is a mirror."_

The whispers tell him that the purpose of a mirror is to see one's reflection, but what is there to see? There is only darkness.

There has always only been darkness.

He resigns himself to there always being darkness.

"What is light?"

The darkness never whispers to him an answer to that question.

"What is light?"

The question only has three words. Light exists. Why is there never an answer?

"What is light?"

And finally, _finally_, the darkness gives him an answer.

_"Listen, can you hear her in the mirror?"_

His ears hear the whispers in the dark, he is used to the whispers in the dark, but he suddenly hears something this is most definitely not them.

Sobbing echoes around him. The sound frazzles the whispers, burns his ears, shakes his world. He is not certain what to make of it. And then it happens.

His eyes are in agony, so he squeezes them shut tight. Light...is light pain?

When he dares open his eyes again, the light still hurts. It is radiating from the recesses of the useless mirror. But there is something different that the light brings. There is a boy in the mirror with hair that is _brown_, eyes that are _blue_, and he is copying every action he himself performs.

_"Your reflection,"_ the darkness whispers, sounding so weak and strained that he barely hears it. _"This is your reflection. You look like this."_

The image of himself wavers, but the bright blue eyes remain. He stares into a white room, the color foreign to him but decidedly known, and sees the red-haired girl. She is the one that is crying, she is the one that has just destroyed everything he has ever known.

He wonders if he should resent her.

Too bad he feels something strong tying him to her.

_"I hunger for the darkness in peoples' hearts. She has enough darkness to make me fat with gluttony!"_

The darkness is almost happy. He is unprepared for so many changes.

_"Give her to me!"_

When has the darkness ever lied before? There is no reason to tell it no.

Still...

"Hey, why are you crying?"

He is surprised by how innocent his voice is, how high pitched and childish. The reflection of himself he had seen was of a child, but he finally feels the impact.

His voice has transcended through the glass boundaries of the mirror and the girl looks up at him in some kind of ashamed awe. Her blue eyes are red-rimmed, cheeks pink from rubbing away her tears.

She repeats the rubbing action as she says, "I-I'm not crying!" He does not believe her.

"Don't lie," he tells her. He does not know why he feels authoritative, but he has never seen a person cry before. He does not like it, the act is loud and it makes the crier ugly. There is also something tickling inside him that says that there may be more of a reason to hate this girl crying, but he is not sure. He tries again, "Why are you crying?"

"I'm feeling a little lonely," she admits to him. He sees she is embarrassed. Her cheeks are pink for a new reason. He likes it better. The blush makes the tickling sensation more intense. He feels his lips pull up, it almost feels like his face is breaking, but he allows the motion.

"You don't have to cry anymore," he says. The strangeness of his expression does something to his voice, to his speech, and it sounds so hopeful and _happy_ and that tickling just will not stop.

He feels lighter. Maybe the tickling should stay.

"You don't have to, really!" Why is he so cheerful?

"I'll be your friend, and I'll be here whenever you want me to be!" A friend? A friend! The darkness whispers something of a definition, something of a warning, but a friend sounds like a good idea to him. The expression on his face suddenly hurts less, but it has not shifted at all.

"I promise!"

His body moves on its own, his nerves thrumming with the feeling of light, with warmth, for the first time he can remember, and he jabs his pinky at the mirror. He does not know where this action comes from, but it seems right. The darkness has no explanation, not that he would bother listening for one.

Her voice is very quiet when she answers. "We can't make it a pinky promise," she says even as she moves her own pinky to his. He sees her finger press against something invisible, the skin depress, and realizes the _mirror_ is still between them. He had forgotten. "because we can't touch. I think I'd like to be your friend, though."

Her acceptance makes something in his chest begin to tickle now. "What's your name?" he asks, unsure as to why it is important, but he feels he must ask, lest this warm feeling wither.

She smiles. The only evidence of her tears are the tracks on her face. "Kairi."

He likes that name, he might just love it. As the thought passes, the tickle in his chest begins to pain him. He realizes with an almost painful jolt that it is his _heart_, and that this girl before him stirred the light within it into activeness. The darkness had smothered it to near oblivion, but the name of a friend reinforced its state.

He feels invincible. The darkness is insignificant, quiet, and he wonders why he bothered to listen to it in the past.

The reawakening of his heart triggers a memory he is not sure of its origin.

A name.

"I'm Sora. I'm really glad I got to meet you. Friends forever, okay? Promise!"

The expression is fit for a child, he is a child, and he has his first friend.

**.Watercolors.**

Sora waits before the mirror, as always, fingers playing across its smoothness. He has no concept of time in this oasis in the darkness, but he can see the faint outline of Kairi's bedroom and he remembers her "see you later!" as she darted from her room that morning.

Sora did not even attend school, but he hates it as much as she seems to. The reasons may be different, but he is sure the feeling is the same.

And finally, he hears a door creak open. As his light enters the room, the image in the mirror becomes sharper, fuller, and he can see it for its extent.

She throws the satchel she takes with her often to the ground and flops onto her bed. The action is mildly amusing and he smiles. He laughs.

_He feels_.

"Hello, Sora," Kairi says from her bed. She turns her head to look at him.

Even exhausted and spread ungainly across her white bedsheets, she is still beautiful. In the years before, the thought had never crossed his mind, but was he the only one to notice as her body matured? He watched her grow taller with every year she mentioned. Her fiery hair grew longer, her limbs longer, and other parts of her accentuated.

His friend is a young woman now. According to his friend, he is now a young man. He had not noticed about himself.

"Tough day at school?" He waits for the inevitable rant and all its tangents. When she gets into a rant he is reminded of an angry chipmunk and he waits for that part most of all. It is cute.

Kairi is cute. He adores her.

"I can't say 'tough'" she answers. "Confusing seems to work better."

"You wanna talk about it?"

He adores her. He will always help her.

She smiles and his heart soars. "I think someone likes me."

His heart plummets.

"_Who?_"

Sora is surprised by his own hostility. He feels the darkness creeping upon him, but Kairi is his light and Kairi is _here_. Her source of light is stronger than his disappointment.

"His name is Riku. He's a senior."

Kairi had explained the hierarchy of high school to him. Freshmen were the bottom rung of the social ladder, while sophomores had it a little better. Once a student was in their third year as a junior, like Kairi, that student was considered an upperclassman. The oldest students in their last year of public education were the seniors.

"He's older than you." Sora knows he has no reason to be so put out by this. He knows it. But there is something he does not like and it makes him bitter. He tries not to rain on Kairi's parade.

"Is that bad? I'm older than you, you know?"

He is affronted. The nerve! "Only by a month and a half!" The memory of his birthday was just as mysterious as his name. It is a hidden memory, just as the ones pertaining to different places and people and the echo of _"Sora, Donald, Goofy!"_ are.

"And it's not bad, it's just...I dunno." He sighs and his phantom memories hear the crash of a wave. "I guess I'm just trying to look out for my best friend as best I can from here."

"I appreciate it."

Just that honest sentiment brings Sora's good mood back. He adores her _so_ much.

Sora watches Kairi stretch lazily across the bed, he gets an uncomfortable flash of skin on her upper thigh as she works and blushes red at that, as she reaches futilely for her bag. Eventually she manages to grab it and removes her cellphone.

Sora wants one of those. He will never tell her that he will never have access to one, always that he cannot afford one.

The cellphone beeps some tune that Sora does not know. It is cute and jumpy. It reminds him of her.

"Is that from Riku?"

She answers the text message quickly enough. Sora feels triumphant. Riku only gets to talk to Kairi at school or through a phone. Sora can see her for the rest of the day and talk as much as he wants.

_"Winner gets to share the paopu with Kairi!"_

Another phantom memory ghosts by. He does not know what a paopu is or who challenged him once upon a whenever.

"He wants to hang out with me tonight."

Kairi smiles as she confirms his thoughts, but Sora feels cold all over. He can hear the malicious laughter of the darkness swirling around his haven.

"But-"

"I'm so excited! He's really cute...and I do want to get to know him."

She promised him yesterday. Sora remembers as she tried to apply her make-up with him there to botch her efforts. She was going out with friends, she had said, and that she would talk with him the following day.

She promised.

"But-!"

"Sora, go away for a tad! I need to change!" The order is warm and in good humor, but Sora feels it like a wound. If this continues on, the wound will fester and become infected.

"But Kairi!"

The girl has previously flown to her closet at the prospect of meeting with Riku, so she peers back around to stare at him. Her eyebrows knit closer together in an expression of concern. "Sora?"

"But...but you went out last night with your friends from school. And you just got home. I...missed you. I don't want you to go out tonight." He has made pleas like this in the past. Kairi has always taken his requests seriously. Surely the tip about her friends will remind her?

His words seem to have made some sort of impact on her, but her following words stilled any rising hope. "But I just told him I'd meet him, Sora."

He cannot look at her. His heart aches. But Sora knows he is being selfish, cannot stand that he is. When he glances back at Kairi she is watching him. "Go ahead, Kairi. Forget about it. Don't let me monopolize your time."

"Sora...?"

"Don't worry about it," he says with a smile. Now that he as come to a decision, he will support it. It is worth Kairi's heaven-sent smile. "I'm gonna let you change now. See you?"

"Of course," she says. She is nervous now. "But are you really sure this is okay with you?"

"I can miss you a little longer, I'll live. Go have fun."

Turning away from the mirror has never been so hard. Sora cuts his connection with her.

The urge to be near her when they first met faded over time, he felt it. But he promised.

He adores her. He keeps his promise.

After she has left, Sora looks back into the dim room. He feels tired and indecisive. "But Kairi, you already told _me_ you'd be with me tonight," he says into the mirror. His faint reflection mouths the words back. "I asked first."

**.Blank Canvas.**

Sora watches her. He does not say anything to her.

That is how their relationship degraded.

As the school year blew by, Kairi become involved with more and more people. And Riku. She became involved with Riku. She spent less time at home, less time talking, less time _remembering he exists_.

Long ago, he had never seen light. But he had known it existed.

Was he Kairi's hidden light?

The darkness creeps into his heart steadily. For Kairi, he fights as hard as he can.

He perks up as her polyphonic ringtone goes off. Kairi has a call? Is it Selphie? Or maybe Olette?

God help him if it is Riku.

"Riku?" Kairi asks as soon as she thumbs the flip phone open. "Why are you calling this late?"

Sora rolls his eyes. God was not on his side.

"What? Are you okay? He didn't hit you, did he?" Kairi shrieks like a parrot. Speaking of birds, Sora glances over at the little white bird cage he remembers from a time when Kairi was a child. Jacobi is old. He might die any day. It is a miracle the dove is still alive.

"Of course you can come over! My parents are out. They love you anyway. Come on, babe, don't be like that. I'll let you in when you get here, relax!"

Sora does not like this conversation. Riku has been at Kairi's house a few times, and any time they are alone in the bedroom they are very touchy. Nothing happened as far as Sora witnessed, but he feels a sour taste in his mouth every time.

"Okay, I'll see you soon."

He is jealous of Riku.

He knows he should not dislike Riku. The boy is not a bad person. He takes care of Kairi. He is everything to Kairi that _he_ wants to be. That is the only qualm Sora has with him.

"Riku's coming over again?" He asks. Almost immediately, he chomps down on his tongue. Where had the words come from?

Kairi jumps. "Sora!"

Why does his name sound so alien to him? Was he really so used to silence? Ignorance?

"Did you expect someone else?" Even as he feels something dark in his heart, he grins at her. He grins like he has heard the funniest joke ever. He adores her. He will not make her cry.

"Ah, sorry. Well, yes, Riku is coming over."

"...I don't like it."

"Huh?"

"I said I don't like that Riku is coming over, especially when you're parents aren't home."

Kairi stares at him. She looks almost awed that he spoke up. She looks almost _angry_.

"Sora, who gave you the right to dictate my life?"

Oh, she _is_ angry.

"I'm not. I'm just telling you what I think." He tries to sound as docile as he can, but he hears the edge in his own voice.

"Sora, stop. Riku's having a hard time right now. He and his dad are always fighting. He needs me, drop it."

Kairi takes an unused pillow case from the closet and tosses it over the mirror. Sora is used to seeing the white of Kairi's room, but this white is different.

He is scared for a moment.

"Kairi? Kairi!"

He does not receive an answer.

The doorbell rings.

And for what feels like the final time, Sora turns away from the mirror.

The darkness feels warm as it embraces him, coos into his ears,

_"Welcome home, I missed you."_

**.Paint Spill.**

Sora has no idea how much time has passed without activity from the mirror.

But when there is suddenly something happening, he feels a long forgotten tingling in his chest.

He almost dares to hope.

"Kairi?"

Sora presses his face close to the mirror. He can only see the thick, dusty cloth of a tarp around him, faded with the lack of light.

"Kairi?"

Something shudders violently and the glass of the mirror cracks.

Perhaps a loose fragment of the surface chips off. It is the only explanation for why Sora feels an indescribable pain in his right eye. He screams and it echoes in the darkness. There is no word from the darkness and there is no light to quell his fears.

"Be more careful, that's my daughter's stuff! She wants it moved to her new place!" he hears through the screams crackling from his abused vocal chords and the blood pumping in his ears.

"Kairi...?"

**.What Color is Love?.**

There are more voices. Since the crack in the mirror, he has heard a wide range of voices. They moved Kairi's mirror all over the place. The sounds were interesting; he wishes someone would be kind enough to explain to him what made what sound.

But he is sure the mirror is stationary now.

Suddenly the tarp-like cloth is removed and he looks back at the mirror, staring at a yellow room through distorted glass. Something warm cascades down his face. Was he so numb he could only now feel his own blood? He is actually a little surprised he can bleed at all. It is a new phenomenon.

A yellow room, however? He does not recognize a yellow room. All he knows is white and black. He looks back into the darkness.

"Why don't you two see what Daddy's up to?" He hears. This voice stirs something inside him; something a lot like hope, affection, and a wrath so deep he almost suffocates. He refuses to look back at the mirror.

"Sora...?" The voice says. It is a woman's voice. And this woman sounds so fearful.

He refuses to answer to the voice of the woman he loved, still loves, and will forever love.

"Sora...?" The woman asks again. He hears the edge of tears in her voice and he remembers red-rimmed eyes and flushed cheeks on a little girl.

There is a familiar tug towards the mirror. He is tugged towards the darkness in the woman's heart.

"Kairi...?" He asks. He needs to make sure. He needs to know.

He adores her.

She is older now, a lot older. Her hair is still the same wild red and she has let it grow out. The same blue eyes stare almost horrified into the mirror, yet the crack runs right through one of them so he cannot see it well.

Her eyes are red-rimmed.

Kairi is _back_. Gravity hit hard. And he did what only he can do so well: he smiled.

"Kairi, you came back." He is smiling, he actually has the gall to feel happy, so he does not understand why he feels tears well up in the eye that does not hurt quite so much.

She stares at him. She looks afraid.

"I missed you. You were gone for a long time. How is Riku doing? Last time you said he was having a fight with his dad." He talks. He talks a lot. It feels like all the things he left unsaid want nothing more to do with him.

"I...I'm sorry, Sora!" Kairi cries. The sounds that follow are those of animals, hurt animals, as she sobs.

He hates it when she cries.

"This room is new," he says. He wants to say something silly to make her feel better, because he adores her, loves her, but he wants her to understand, needs her to understand, that he _hates_ her.

That she is his living paradox.

Kairi seems to understand _something_, but he does not know what. "This is my daughter's room. She's six."

_Oh, the insult to injury._

"Daughter?" Sora lets the wound go ignored. A daughter meant that his stupid, beaten up mirror might be put to use again. "What's her name?"

He wonders when his bloody tears began to fall. He cannot recall.

"H-her name is Namine," she says. "She has a brother. His name is Roxas. They're twins."

Two children? Two opportunities.

Sora likes them already.

"Good names. It's also good that they have each other. They won't be lonely." He tells her.

_They won't hurt me like you did._

He keeps the thought in his head.

"R-right," Kairi agrees, looking all the world like a lost child.

"You're crying again. Are you feeling lonely?" As Sora remembers the good times spent as needy children, he feels his heart jump start. It feels so good to talk to her again. It is almost euphoric. The pleasure is on par with orgasm.

He holds his pinky out.

She is surprised. He is crying and she is crying and he just _wants it all back_.

He sees it in her eyes. This will not end well for him. His heart bothers to hope anyway.

She shakily touches the mirror with her pinky.

"No, Sora. I'm not lonely anymore. I'm sorry. I have to break our promise."

Sora closes his good eye. He feels his heart break for the final time.

"It hurts," he says, opening his eye. His heart is shattering and he needs to convey it. The darkness is overjoyed. It licks tantalizing across his skin, whispers sweet nothings in his ears, calms his chaotic thoughts. He feels himself morphing with the darkness, absorbing it into himself as it absorbs him.

He is becoming Darkness.

Kairi says something to his admission of pain, but he cannot hear it. The darkness is interfering.

"Can you do me a favor?" Sora manages to ask. The darkness is lining his throat. It almost chokes him. His eyesight sharpens and he can see something in Kairi's chest. He feels himself begin to salivate.

_I want that_.

"Anything." He hears her agree. He smiles. Her voice is heavenly. "Absolutely anything. I owe you that much."

His heart is on its final legs.

"Make it stop hurting," he requests, his throat so weak and full of the soothing, yet equally searing, darkness.

Sora sees the heart in her chest. It thumps rapidly and he wants it so bad. _It's marvelous._

"I will," Kairi says with certainty. She places a kiss gently to the glass. Sora feels the urge to strike out at her, at her chest, at that _heart...!_

Kairi beats him to it. She takes her fist and slams it into the mirror. It shatters and that is the last coherent thought Sora had of his first, best, and only friend.

* * *

**A/N: There, Sora's part is done. Sufficiently angsty for you guys?**


End file.
